Reawakening: Piccolo
by Dragon Ball Dark
Summary: How Picolo became like this. Why his thoughts changed suddenly. Why has Goku became so rude. Who is this new Super Saiyan.


Piccolo drew a sharp breath and opened his eyes. He knew he'd sensed something. At first, he was inclined to pass it off as another one of the starts he'd been having ever since...

They called it the Reawakening. It had supposedly occurred during his battle with the Namekians of Universe 6, when he was defeated by their crushing spirit, the spirit of many Namekians just thirsting for his blood. The two other spirits inside him, that of the Guardian, Kami and of the warrior, Nail, were supposed to have been awoken.

Piccolo only felt the after-effects much later on. He could sense anything going on in planets far away. He could psychically communicate with anyone in his universe. He felt like he knew everything there was to know. But most importantly, he could communicate with Kami and Nail inside his head. Kami had told him that this was his powers as a Guardian that was settling in after the Reawakening.

Piccolo wasn't sure how he felt about this. He had always had his principles clear about being private and giving others their privacy. Now he went against both, as he had two foreign spirits inside him, knowing his darkest thoughts and deepest feelings, and also as he now could read anyone's mind and see beforehand anybody's actions.

If this was the burden of being a god, Piccolo wasn't sure he wanted to be a god.

But all three spirits in Piccolo's body knew that what he sensed was too big for him to ignore. So Piccolo stood, donned his weighted clothes and took off at lightning speed. A few seconds later, he stood at the edge of Kami's Lookout, now inhabited by the new Guardian, also a Namekian called Dende. Dende ran out of the majestic palace to greet him.

A few moments passed, as Piccolo found himself sitting in the vast gardens, sipping tea. He felt oddly nostalgic; a restless feeling inside him.

"They are not yours," said Mr Popo, glancing towards Piccolo from the corner of his eye as he watered a patch of tulips. Piccolo clenched his teeth. He knew what Popo meant. The thoughts weren't his. They were Kami's. This scared Piccolo, though he never admitted it to anybody. He couldn't even distinguish his feelings and ideas from the old Guardian's. Where did he fit in? The thought of him being driven out of his own body...

Piccolo gulped his tea down and headed inside. He first had to get ahead of whatever this was before getting into his personal issues. He found Dende in the map room, where he was examining all the celestial bodies in the direction Piccolo pointed.

"Any progress?" Piccolo asked. Dende shook his head. "I should have known better," he muttered. "Whatever happened, I sensed it too. It's vague, but it's there. The catch is, Mr Piccolo, for all we know, it might have been a star imploding. The only way to make sure is to actually go there and check."

Piccolo shrugged his agreement and turned. Closing his eyes, he thought, 'Nail, Kami, do you hear me?'

'We are here,' came the reply. Piccolo shivered. This wasn't so much a dialogue as just information being presented to his mind. They were in his head. This level of transparency still gave him chills.

'I need your advice on this matter. Both of yours,' Piccolo thought.

'Dende is right. Take Goku.'

'Why, are there any powerful enemies there?'

'No, his Instantaneous Transmission is useful in getting you there. And you're right, you've got to get him to teach that to you.'

'Huh. Do you have any idea what's there?'

Silence.

Piccolo grunted. If he could hit himself and it hurt the both of them, he would. "I'm going there," Piccolo said. "Adieu, Dende. You seem to be doing great as the Guardian."

Dende nodded and waved.

Piccolo wasn't too excited about having to meet Son Goku again. When they had last parted ways, it wasn't on the best of terms. Still, it had to be done, so he took off.

A few seconds later, Piccolo was knocking at Goku's door. He was taken aback when Videl opened the door. Apparently, Videl was too.

"Piccolo! Hi!" she exclaimed and ran towards him. Piccolo couldn't help but smile as he hugged her back. As he stepped inside, he saw a huge table set with delicious dishes of all kinds. This was the high tea of the Son household, by the looks of it.

Chi Chi waved cheerily at him from the kitchen. "Join us!" she called out. Piccolo held up a hand, politely muttering a decline. After pleasantries were passed out to Goten and Gohan, he reluctantly turned his gaze over to Goku, who was uncharacteristically quiet and eating reservedly.

When Goku refused to meet Piccolo's eyes, Gohan said, "Dad!" with a reprimanding tone. Goku sighed with submission. Still holding a passive-aggressive air about him, Goku stepped out of the house to the lawn outside, not meeting his eyes even now.

Piccolo followed him outside, with an unexpected wave of wistfulness washing over him, however fleeting. Goku had still not forgiven him. For all those months ago... Being the carefree, forgiving soul that Goku was, Piccolo expected to be forgiven a lot sooner. There were some lines beyond which even Son Goku was flinty and hard, apparently.

It was also trying that Goku would be angry with him without recognizing his own hand in the flow of events that led to the both of them ending up on bad terms. A million more things could've gone wrong then, but, without any direct involvement from Piccolo, Goku and his role as a father were affected.

"Why are you here?" Goku's voice interrupted his thoughts. Piccolo found him looking down, but his body posture was one that was passive but could turn hostile at any given moment.

Piccolo swallowed his irritation and took a deep breath. "I need your help with something," he said. Goku chuckled mirthlessly to that. "Yeah, anything else?" he asked. Piccolo exhaled with annoyance. "I only need you to teleport me some place. It's important."

"Ask your buddy the Kaioshin to do that," Goku said, walking away. Finding his wife blocking the entrance to his house, Goku grunted angrily. Chi Chi's expression was clear. Talk to each other. Settle your affairs. However headstrong Goku was, Chi Chi was just as immovable, probably even more so.

"The Gods are on a break," Piccolo said quietly. "By the Daishinkan's decree. We can't contact any God other than our own planet's Guardian."

Goku sighed and turned around to face Piccolo. "Just my luck," he said stolidly, looking him in the eyes for the first time since he'd been here. "Let's go."

"You know, I don't want to be doing this," Piccolo muttered, having given Goku an indication about the anomaly's general direction. Having his back to him, Goku mumbled under his breath, "That makes two of us," in a nonchalant tone. With his Namekian super-hearing, there were few things Piccolo couldn't hear. He clenched his teeth with annoyance.

Nail suddenly presented himself to Piccolo's mind. 'Say you're not at fault,' he said, 'it's his fault too.'

Piccolo decided to ignore him. He exhaled with impatience. Goku looked at him over his shoulder with a frown. The message was crystal. Have patience.

Piccolo was uncharacteristically frustrated. He wished he had something to hit. A quick snap of pain in his head told him that Goku had succeeded in his search for a ki. He turned around to see Goku holding out his hand. Piccolo almost lunged and grabbed it. And the next thing he knew, he was on a barren rock of a planet and intense shivering in his back for an after sensation.

Goku let go of his hand, as Piccolo looked around. This was his first time being on another planet other than the Nameless Planet, which was actually just a crust of space dust on a Super Dragon Ball, and the World of Void. As far as planets went, this one was quite big, but it was painfully barren, with no vegetation visible to even his upgraded eyes for hundreds of miles on end. The gravity was many times more than Earth's; ten times, if Piccolo had to estimate. This barely affected the both of them.

"What are we here for?" Goku asked him. Piccolo wasn't sure himself. Why had he sensed something on this lifeless planet?

Moreover, it had been something big enough to have presented itself on Dende's map. He shook his head.

Seeing that, Goku inhaled sharply with irritation. "Well, something MUST be here," he almost spat, "otherwise I couldn't have locked on to an energy and transported us here. So you'd better give me something really soon or I'm leaving you here and going home."

Piccolo felt himself give in to the argument. "What is your problem?!" he shot back. "When I don't know, I don't know!" Suddenly, Goku was inches away from him, clenching his teeth and giving off a burning heat. "The last time you didn't know, my wife almost died," he growled. "I'm not planning on dying myself any time soon."

Piccolo didn't flinch. "That is bullshit," he berated. "You know as well as I that you're just not strong enough to admit to yourself that you're the one responsible for that. I had little to do with that. The rest was circumstantial."

Goku clenched his teeth and grabbed the folds of Piccolo's weighted shoulder piece. The heat his hand was emanating was so intense it scalded Piccolo's skin underneath the armor. Piccolo gripped Goku's wrist, electrifying his palm and got a satisfactory burning smell from Goku's wrist.

This standoff lasted for quite a few seconds before both of them had calmed down enough to hear a weak voice groaning. They both let go of each other and ran swiftly towards the voice.

They ran for quite a while before they saw some shrubbery, the first signs of life encountered since they'd gotten there. Both Goku and Piccolo having located the source of a fading ki, they ran towards it. The source turned out to be a dying man, with a rusty iron rod protruding from his stomach, dried blood caked around the wound. The man's armor-like clothing looked familiar, with a symbol that was foreign yet strangely familiar emblazoned on the chest plate.

Piccolo turned to see Goku's awestruck face. He understood his weird reaction. The man's armor was similar to the one he'd seen Cabba of Universe 6 wear. Moreover, his hair was an indubitable golden color. His ki was also that of a...

"Super Saiyan," Goku said with wonder. "This man is a Super Saiyan."

Piccolo noted a hint of fear in Goku's voice. Instinctively, he read his mind. What he saw - what he felt in Goku's mind - left him dumbstruck

Goku didn't fear this man, this new Super Saiyan. He dreaded the possibility of another family of his, waiting for him. He dreaded the possibility of conflict with his kind. His deepest regret was, astonishingly, the fight with his brother Raditz. And his most secret wish was to reunite with him, get to know him; Goku wanted his brother back, even though their first meeting wasn't exactly a family reunion. This was probably the only selfish desire of Goku's, yet so selfless. Piccolo felt himself be humbled by Son Goku yet again.

A groan of pain from the unknown Super Saiyan brought Piccolo back to reality. He found Goku kneeling over him, asking him questions persistently. When Piccolo realized that the Saiyan didn't have enough strength to answer, he gave some of his energy to him.

Immediately, color returned to the Saiyan's skin, focus returned to his eyes and his golden aura shone a bit brighter. Piccolo was taken aback that his transformation still held on; he should have transformed back to his base form a long time ago.

Goku asked him, "Hey, what is your name?!" and waved his hand over the Saiyan's eyes. Briskly catching the hand, the man answered haltingly, "My name... cough... is Yamoshi cough."

Piccolo was taken aback yet again. The dialect Yamoshi spoke was not spoken anymore in any region of the universe. In the corner of his mind, Kami confirmed this. Piccolo looked at Goku. He hadn't understood what Yamoshi said.

Before Piccolo could translate, "Yamoshi turned to Goku and said in the new universal language, "Son Goku... cough I have been watching you... cough all your life. You... cough are the one to save us all. cough"

Goku knelt down, placing a hand on Yamoshi's knee. "What do you mean?" he asked in a gentle voice. Yamoshi couldn't muster enough strength to answer. He rolled his eyes back and passed out. His hair went back to a dry black.

Goku looked up with frantic eyes. "We need to help him!" he exclaimed. "Here, lift him up!"

Piccolo, too dumbstruck by this development, could do nothing but nod dumbly and do as he was told. He lifted Yamoshi in his arms gently but steadily, while Goku searched for a ki, presumably Vegeta's, back home on Earth. They needed to get Yamoshi immediate medical care, and Bulma's lab, the most advanced one on Earth, was the best place they could take him.

As soon as Goku locked on to Vegeta's ki, he grabbed Piccolo's shoulder and WHOOSH! They were at Bulma's lab infirmary, where all sorts of machines blinked and beeped.

Bulma ran in, horrified. "What the hell is this, Son-kun?!" she demanded of Goku. Goku nodded at Piccolo, indicating that she should ask him. With that, Goku announced he was going to Lord Karin's place to get a Senzu, while Piccolo filled Bulma in the best he could.

A few hours of gruelling waiting later, Bulma stepped out of the infirmary, holding the rusty rod that was previously in Yamoshi's stomach. She looked grave. "If Son-kun doesn't get back within five minutes, your guy might not survive." She stepped away.

Piccolo felt a certain sense of dread. This unknown Saiyan was his only source of information on what happened on the barren planet. If he died, Piccolo would not have done his duty properly as the...

Guardian.

Piccolo sensed his train of thoughts starting to agitate Kami, but he pushed that aside. Guardian... of course! Yamoshi was a guardian of something on the planet. That symbol... it signified the status of a guardian. Not the type of Guardian Kami and Dende were, of course, but to actually guard something for royalty.

"Oh, get back soon, Son!" Piccolo muttered impatiently, shuffling his feet around.

Four minutes were up. Piccolo by now had almost given up now. He knew that growing a Senzu bean took some time, but for the first time in his life, he felt as if time was running out.

Suddenly, there was a loud WHOOSH behind him. Piccolo turned around, almost ecstatic. It was, indeed, Goku.

Two minutes later, Yamoshi had regained enough strength to talk. Vegeta had also arrived, leaving his training for another cause for the first time, out of curiosity about this new Super Saiyan.

Piccolo spoke hurriedly to prevent Goku and Vegeta to start shooting Yamoshi with questions. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked. Yamoshi nodded gratefully. "I'm feeling quite better, thanks to the two of you," he said softly, gripping Piccolo's hand. Piccolo smiled encouragingly in response.

Piccolo was not one for bedside manner, but having taken care of Gohan as a kid, and filling in for Videl and Gohan to look after Pan, Gohan's daughter, occasionally, he'd somewhat developed a polite, gentle demeanor.

"Yamoshi, who did this to you?" Goku asked, pointing to his bandaged stomach. At this, Yamoshi's expression grew stormy. After a moment's pause, he quietly answered, "I shall tell you. But you will not like my answer."

Vegeta stepped forward. He had been training hard, apparently, judging from his tired and grimy look. Piccolo knew that training so hard was not at all good for Vegeta, but it was no use telling him anything. The Prince did what he pleased.

"Tell us," he said with a commanding air. Yamoshi took a long look at Vegeta. His facial expression was hard to interpret. Piccolo took a deep breath to clamp his impatience down. He wanted to talk to the Saiyan and extract as much useful information as he could as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the two spirits inside him had other ideas, so at length he had to give in, and Piccolo tried to read Yamoshi's mind.

No sooner than he had gained entry into his mind that Piccolo was hit with an overwhelming wave of nausea. Apparently, his expression was not all that was stormy. There was no sense, no pattern in Yamoshi's mind. There was just pure chaos. This put Piccolo's mind into disarray and under extreme stress. His strength giving out eventually, he blacked out.

What felt like forever later, Piccolo opened his eyes slowly to a blurry image and ragged breaths. Not before long, he realized he was in a healing tank filled with water and the necessary protiens and minerals to heal the body.

'The imbecile monkeys think you're dehydrated,' Nail said spitefully. Ever since he'd woken up, he was restless; it made Piccolo anxious. What if one day he woke up to find himself in a battle for his own body? And judging from how well his emotions were in order right now, he was nowhere near sure he'd win.

Nevertheless, he was still in control of his body. That gave him the right to tell Nail to shut up. And he did.

Piccolo sluggishly moved his arm to knock on the glass of the tank. A nurse took notice and switched the tank off. When the water lowered and the oxygen mask retracted, Piccolo stepped out and shot out of there. He had to find the others. This time, he knew for himself that this would require everyone.

An hour later, he was standing at Goku's place again, where he'd managed to gather Krillin, Vegeta and Muten Roshi, while Gohan was already there.

"What did he tell you?" Piccolo asked quietly. Vegeta answered, "After your little mind trick, he shut down completely. He's in a coma now. How useless, you lot!"

Piccolo was not surprised hearing this. The mind reading technique psychically connected him to the person he would be reading. Which meant that if Piccolo had a less-than-desirable reaction, it happened to Yamoshi as well.

After he was done explaining this, Piccolo looked up and said, "There is, however, one silver lining."

This caught everyone's attention.

"I managed to get a little bit of information from his mind," Piccolo admitted. "Well, spit it out then!" Vegeta returned.

Piccolo took a deep but nervous breath. He had no idea what this information meant, for the universe or for his fellow fighters who'd been through enough recently. Yet, he had to tell them.

"Planet Vegeta has been resurrected. The Saiyans are back. All of them."


End file.
